(The following story by Blackwell Thomas appeared on The Southern website on September 10.)
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Amtrak ridership numbers are up on the three trains traveling from Carbondale, a company official said Monday.
Anne McGinnis, a sales and marketing associate with Amtrak, said the route has seen a 45 percent increase between October 2006 and last July.
McGinnis said she did not have exact numbers for the increase but said the addition of a new daily Carbondale-to-Chicago trains last October called the Saluki Express and Illini Express has boosted numbers to those from The City of New Orleans, a train originating from Chicago that stops in Carbondale daily before continuing its way to New Orleans.
“Business is good,” McGinnis said, in a break with recent Amtrak history.
City Manager Jeff Doherty said 85,000 passengers a year travel through Carbondale on Amtrak trains.
“And the number of passengers has increased significantly over the past three years,” he said.
McGinnis said all three of the company’s zones in Illinois are experiencing increased ridership – those zones include three routes to and from Chicago with service to Quincy, St. Louis and Carbondale.
The news from Amtrak came as officials from Midwest High Speed Rail Association, a Chicago-based railway lobbying group, announced their new campaign at the Carbondale Amtrak station.
The campaign, Catch an Illinois Train, is aimed at highlighting the expanded Amtrak schedule and the growth in demand for the company’s services.
Rick Harnish, MHRA’s executive director said in a release that increased ridership is helping to shrink costs.
“We’ve saved more than $3 million from all the increased ridership and ticket sales,” he said. “The more riders we have, the better off we all are.”
City councilwoman Mary Pohlmann was at the station and said the train is a part of Carbondale’s history and its future.
“This town was built around a train (station),” she said. “The train is what brought people here. That’s how Carbondale became a town.”
Pohlmann added that the use of the train by university students has likely proved to be a boon to Amtrak and Southern Illinois University Carbondale.